


Venial Sin

by Jaxon



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Addiction, Forgiveness, Gen, Mutilation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 20:19:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15736647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaxon/pseuds/Jaxon
Summary: HP AU.  Harry triumphantly wreaks revenge against Snape for murdering Dumbledore.It's exhilarating.  Right up until the moment that he realises that Snape was on his side all along...Written for Tumblr's Snape Writing and Drawing Fest 2018.





	Venial Sin

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: AU where Harry does something awful to Snape in retaliation for killing Dumbledore, and then has to deal with the later realization that Snape was on his side (Snape can be alive or dead at that point). Preferably not with a “warm and fuzzy / was only being nasty as part of his cover” Snape.

The problem with war, thought Harry James Potter, was that it changed you.

Admittedly, there had always been _something_ different about him. He hadn’t noticed it at first, least, hadn’t given it credence.  Everyone had their quirks.  There was Ron, who struggled to keep his jealousy in check, and Hermione, who – for all her wide-eyed innocence – was ambivalent about revealing a ruthless streak when she had embarked upon a moral crusade.

There is nothing quite like the vengeance of the righteous.  And that’s what this was.  A moral crusade.  His vengeance.  He was the righteous.  Now, if he was truly honest with himself, he might’ve admitted that he’d always felt that ember smouldering away within him.  It manifested in snarky comments, and biting wit – but without that inner fire, he’d never have coped with the level of abuse that the Dursleys saw fit to bestow upon him.  

For a brief time, in that first year, the fire had quietened.  Hogwarts was like a calming rush of sea air, finding his home and his friends, and yet, when he returned to Privet Drive, the flames started to lick higher – the contrast between happiness and misery never quite so stark. At least previously, he’d never been happy; well, not as far as he could remember.  You couldn’t miss what you’d never had.

They were abstract, really. His parents.  James Potter.  Lily Potter. Names of people who didn’t exist. Personalities which had been kept from him, jealously guarded by Petunia Dursley.  Their incredible and brave story had been scrubbed over with distasteful lies – a tale of a drunkard and a car crash, both parents jobless and feckless. Yet, although his initial reaction to Hagrid’s words of explanation had been relief - the knowledge that his life was almost entirely opposite to everything he’d ever imagined - his meeting with Voldemort had changed all of that.

Because for all of Aunt Petunia’s nasty, spiteful lies, he hadn’t really known anything different. It was a nice surprise to discover that his parents were decent, moral, upstanding people.  It filled Harry with a confidence and a pride that had always been missing.  He walked a little taller, knowing that he was of good stock – that his parents were loved and admired, and that he, Harry James Potter, was honoured amongst his own. In those first weeks – months, even! – it had been enough.

But somehow, coming face-to-face with Lord Voldemort had changed all of that.  Hearing how his mother might’ve been spared if only she’d stood aside, and let Harry die instead.  Hearing how his father was slain, no matter how brave he’d been.  It was provocation.  It was as if the fire had been stoked – a righteous rage at all those around him.  A fury at those who had kept the truth from him, that’s what he’d dismissed it as at the time, but now – in retrospect – he wondered if the tainted Horcrux rattling within him sensed the proximity of its real master, and was clamouring to be reunited; to be fed by the darkness.  The rage within him would burn so dramatically, his chest would heave with the pain of it all; that desire for retribution, and the ache to avenge their lives.

It only grew stronger as the months passed, and when Sirius had died, it was as if an inferno was blazing within him, from the soles of his feet to the scar on his head.  He carried that thrust of anger with him, propelling him to fight, encouraging him to live up to his destiny as The Chosen One, and to follow Dumbledore’s guidance.  It wasn’t long before his world collapsed, as more concealed truths were revealed – and at the root of them all was Severus Snape.  Severus Snape told of the prophecy which had cemented his parents’ fate, and Severus Snape murdered Dumbledore, revealing his true allegiance.

Harry had never liked him. Never trusted him.  In many ways, it shouldn’t have been a shock – that the greasy, evil professor who had unfairly maligned him since he, Harry James Potter, had stepped foot in the school – turned out to be a traitor.  A malicious, selfish, double dealing, Death Eater.  Sirius had said it himself all those years before; Snape was smart enough and cunning enough to play both sides off each other, and clearly, with the war starting to turn, he’d sensed his opportunity and played his hand – keen to take his place at the side of his true Master, ready to be rewarded – to be exalted - for his loyalty and bravery.  

And rewarded he was, as he stepped into Dumbledore’s barely cold shoes.  Sat in his chair.  Slept in his bed.   _Taunted his portrait_ , Harry imagined.  He was clever, Snape.  He hadn’t simply scurried back to his brethren – he hadn’t quietly packed his things and waved cheerio.  He’d departed by taking his sword to the figurehead of the Order of the Phoenix, and had left them in disarray; removing their leader, stunting their fight.  It had been as if he’d been thrust head first into the lake – the power of his grief was so immense, it was as if the fire within him almost extinguished.  

It was one thing to avenge his flesh and blood, his parents were a somewhat abstract form that he couldn’t really place, and it was another thing to avenge Sirius, the man who cared for him like no other had before or since – but Albus Dumbledore was another matter entirely.  Albus Dumbledore was his mentor, his light, his guide – and without him, Harry had no idea how he was going to lead the cause.  No idea how he was going to prosper in the war.

It had taken Hermione and her book of Mythology to turn his resolve – to tell him the tale of Hydra; that each time a head was chopped off, two more would grow in its place.   _That’s you_ , she said, pointing at the page.  He’d squinted disdainfully at the illustration, and Ron had laughed.  

 _Not very flattering, mate_ , Ron had grinned.  

Hermione huffed and tutted and then read the pages aloud, and then he saw what she was saying; he’d always have fought in the shadow of Dumbledore, but with him gone, he had space to stand up and be the man he was destined to be – The Chosen One.  And with other members of the Order by his side – not just Ron and Hermione, but Kingsley and Moody and Tonks and Lupin – they would keep regenerating.   _He can’t kill us all_ , Hermione had said.

She was wrong, of course. Voldemort  _could_  kill them all, but then, if he did, there was no point worrying about it; none of them would be around to witness it.  Instead, they could only behave as one of the heads, standing up when it was their turn, and taking their place at the front of the Order – standing where Dumbledore had stood, and brandishing their wand against the evil he’d been so dedicated to defeating.  This new resolve made the inferno swirl within him – it was as if someone had cast Fiendfyre in his soul.

 _You’re mental,_ Ron kept telling him.   _We don’t want to run into Snape_.

But Harry did.  He wanted to run into Snape more than anything – he wanted to hold him under his wand and exact revenge.  He hadn’t had the power all those months ago, following Sirius’ death in the Ministry, but now?  Now, the flames were white hot and burning brightly within him, and the rage consumed him – it was like a sickness that had invaded his body, his blood pumping with the desire to wreak retribution.  

 _Focus on You-Know-Who_ , Hermione had hissed.   _Snape’s a nobody_.  

She was wrong.  He wasn’t a nobody.  Snape was worse than any of the others – he was a trickster, a duplicitous, deceitful coward who deserved a long and agonising death.  At least with the others – the thugs like Dolohov, the insane like Bellatrix, the plain stupid like the Carrows – there was a consistency; they were one-dimensional, almost cartoonish.  But Snape was anything but one dimensional.  He’d seduced and manipulated them all.  McGonagall had liked him.  Dumbledore trusted him.  He’d roamed the corridors of the school and had berated Harry for his behaviour, ruining his school career with unfair detentions and mountains of essays and generally blaming him for every ill within the castle walls.  He was a tyrant.  

 _No.  He’s just a man_ , he’d thought.   _I can defeat a man_.  

It had been harder, at first, in those first few weeks – all he could hear was Snape’s awful voice teasing him, mocking him, telling him that  _he_ , the eavesdropping, treacherous murderer, had been the boy behind the ink and the quill in the potions book; the Half-Blood Prince with whom he had so identified.  But now, upon reflection, that revelation made it easier – because if Harry could imagine the boy behind the Death Eater mask, Harry could keep in mind that Snape was human.   _Barely_.  And humans were not Basilisks, and he’d beaten one of those.  And humans were not dragons or giant spiders or even red-eyed lunatics.  Snape was human.

And in a war, there’s lots of battles – lots of scattered skirmishes prior to the main event, and Harry James Potter was certain of one thing; the Death Eaters may have deposed Dumbledore, but he was going to take out Tom Riddle’s right hand man.  It didn’t matter if it was before the main event or after - Severus Snape would feel his wrath.

It was his desire to inflict lasting punishment upon Snape that had left them in this mess.  He’d been dying – of that Harry was sure – the skin of his neck had been grotesquely shredded, and blood was spraying from beneath Snape’s desperate hands.  His legs were jerking oddly, as if he was a marionette that had been dropped, and his strings had become tangled.  And then, just as Harry had moved towards him, Snape had stopped fumbling his neck, and his hand reached down.  It was obvious he was going for his wand.   _He’s seen me_.  And Harry wasn’t going to be bested like this – not by a man in the throes of death.  

_SECTUMSEMPRA.  SECTUMSEMPRA! SECTUMSEMPRA SECTUMSEMPRA SECTUMSEMPRA!_

It wasn’t as clean as Snape’s own use of the spell; not as controlled as the gash that he’d seen on his father’s cheek, or the almost surgical removal of George’s ear – but nor was it the unintentional slicing that had so damaged Draco.  This time, Harry was aiming, and although he knew that such a spell wouldn’t have succeeded if Snape had his wand in hand, that was rather the point; he wasn’t prepared to let Snape – dying or not – pick his weapon up.

He’d seen a lot of things in the magical world, but nothing quite prepared him for the look of disbelief on Snape’s face.  It was mixed with horror and dismay and pain and confusion, and for a fleeting moment, Harry had revelled in it – revelled in knowing that he’d dealt the final card in Snape’s life, and his punishment was confirmed.  Nagini may have killed him, but he – Harry – had added insult to injury.  He, Snape’s most despised student.  He, the son of James Potter.  And it was he, Harry, who knelt over him.

 _Take them_ , Snape had mumbled, blood filling his throat and stopping his words from being clear.  Harry hadn’t wanted to – not at first, but there was a desperation to Snape’s expression that he’d never seen before.  It reminded him of the small boy that he’d seen cowering in that Muggle squalor, that stringy miserable youth who had skulked out of the exam, and the witty, talented, clever teenager he’d felt so close to.  

Harry took them.

After that, he took a lot of things.  Alcohol at first.   _Go and speak to him_ , Hermione had advised him, but it wasn’t that easy.  How could he? How could Harry walk into a room and look him in the eye now that he knew the truth?  

 _Don’t beat yourself up about it.  It was war.  And he can do wandless magic, mate_ , Ron had said, punching him on the shoulder.   _It’s not like you cut off Goyle’s hands, or something.  Now he would be in a fix._

Such well-intentioned statements didn’t help.  Not really. Drugs did, briefly – but it was never enough.  Harry was haunted all through the day, and all through the night.  Adrenaline would surge through him, and his arms would tremble, and his hands would quiver.  It felt ironic.  In sympathy, he figured.  He couldn’t imagine not having his hands.  He couldn’t imagine living a normal life without them; he couldn’t imagine eating, or tying up his bootlaces, or even reading a book.  

 _Come on, Harry!  He’s a wizard!  It’s not as if you did it to a Muggle_.  Bill Weasley means well when he claps him on the shoulder, but it doesn’t help.  He knows how Snape used to brew.  He knows that duelling was one of his skills.  He knows that Snape loved spell creation, as his old book had proven.  How could he do any of that without his hands?

It would’ve been better had he not lived, Harry reasoned.  He could’ve reconciled it then.  He’d have been angry with himself, and dismayed, but he could’ve imagined a resolution.  He could’ve imagined the apology that he’d have given.  He could’ve assured himself that although it was regrettable, his actions didn’t impact deeply upon Snape – that he was dead moments later, and was always going to die.  He could believe that Snape was a pragmatic man.  A man who would understand the ferocity of the fight, and the danger he’d willing put himself in.  He would understand that Lily’s boy hadn’t done anything wrong.

 _I was reaching for a blood replenishment potion_ , Snape had drawled one day, by way of explanation.  They’d never discussed it before.  It made it worse, knowing that, even if it wasn’t the truth.   _He was trying to save himself, and you cut off his hands_.  Snape gave a thin sneer, as if he’d read Harry’s thoughts. He was uglier than ever – it almost hurt Harry to lay his eyes upon him; his hair was slick, his face unwashed, and his pale neck hosted a swathe of livid red scars.  He didn’t dress like he had at school – he now spent his days in a pair of Muggle trousers and a short-sleeved, open-necked shirt.   _Because my scar hurts_ , he had said one day, when Harry had enquired as to the reason behind his change of style _.  I am sure you understand_.  And then his arms had twitched, and Harry’s eyes had been drawn to the stumps at the end of each wrist.   _Eyes up, Potter_ , he’d snarled.

He visits out of duty, and he’s certain Snape is living out of spite.  He’s seen a book about euthanasia lying around more than once, but when he looked at it and then looked at Snape, the older man’s thin lips had twisted into a nasty smile.   _Looking to finish the job, are you?_

It’s not a life.  How can it be – in this dank, Muggle hole, with few friends, and fewer hobbies.  He’s tried to pay for things, Harry – tried to make his life a little easier. He’s tried to employ a cleaner, tried to introduce a carer – but he’s continually thwarted.   _I don’t need your pity, Potter_.  But whilst Snape doesn’t let alone else through the door – Harry knows that many others have tried – he permits Harry to enter, and Harry doesn’t really know why, but it’s enough to make him return.  Duty.  It’s the least he can do.

 _What’s it like?_ Harry nodded at the vial next to Snape’s glass of water.  

 _It’s an hallucinogenic_ , Snape sniffed, as if that was explanation enough – and then he’d sighed overdramatically when Harry had looked confused.   _It helps_ , he said.  

_With the pain?_

_No_ , came the answer, short and sharp.   _It makes me forget.  When I’m on this,_ he said, staring hard and levitating the potion into the air and up to his mouth,  _I can remember what it was like to be whole again._

Harry wants that.  To remember what it’s like to be whole again. So he visits more and more, coercing Snape to share.   _Anything else, Potter?  The shirt off my back?  The bed in which I sleep?_ But for all of his snark, he seems satisfied at Harry’s offer to help him to brew – to be his hands, the hands which Harry had stolen.

It’s not comfortable. It’s not a friendship, or even a partnership.  He’s as belligerent and as snarky as he’d ever been at Hogwarts, berating Harry for every mistake, and perpetually lamenting his loss.   _I doubt this is powerful enough to put me to sleep_ , he’d sneered, examining Harry’s first attempt,  _let alone whisk me off to a land of make believe, where the heroes are righteous and their deeds are rewarded._ He’s lying.  Again.  He’s always lying.  Duplicitous. Deceitful.  Dangerous.

He’d somehow forgotten the dangerous aspect to Snape.  It was hard to perceive him as a threat these days, now that he simply sat in his chair, barely moving, unshaven and unwashed.  He was a down and out – someone to be pitied – but as his visits grew longer and more frequent, Harry could sense himself starting to spiral. Snape had been right; alcohol did nothing, and drugs did even less – but potions?  Potions helped them both to forget.

So he’d hold the freshly brewed potion to Snape’s lips.  He’d stand and watch as Snape’s long eyelashes fluttered as the potion took effect, a genuine smile spreading across his face – and then Harry would take his own matching vial, and do the same.   _This is my punishment_ , he thinks, as his body slumps to the floor, his brain racing, and his vision blurred.

 _Get up!_   Snape’s voice jolts him out of his slumber, and he does as Snape instructs, but once he’s at his feet, he stares in confusion – the chair is empty; the chair is on the wrong side of the room, even.  There’s no dust in the room, or cobwebs, and there aren’t any books lining the wall.   _Come on, get up!_ He looks around, and then makes his way to the tight staircase, his wand clutched in hand.  

_Snape?_

It’s Snape’s voice. Least, he thinks it is – and there’s nobody else it could be – and then he pushes open the master bedroom door.   _Oh Merlin_ , he thinks, taking in the battered, naked body.  It’s scarred – not just from the snake, but other scars – and his hands are missing, and his bones protrude where they shouldn’t.

He can’t look.   _This is not a good trip_.  He turns and exits, and stumbles, and pushes the door open of the smaller bedroom. There, sat on the bed, is Professor Severus Snape.  A very young Professor Severus Snape, but by his attire, he’s most certainly a teacher.

 _Took you long enough_ , he grumbles.   _Shut the door_ , he says, waving his hand.  

 _I don’t understand_ , Harry answers.   _You’re dead, aren’t you, Snape?_

At this, Snape gives a thin smile.   _Professor Snape, Potter.  But yes, I am dead.  This is when I died._

He doesn’t understand. This isn’t when he died.  The emaciated body in the next room is the Snape he knows.  That’s the Snape who is dead.  That’s the Snape who was bickering with him yesterday, his eyes bloodshot.  This Snape – this Snape who is now stood before him with his hands intact, and his face unblemished by time, is far younger than the man who taught him.  It doesn’t make sense.  

 _How predictable that you would not understand, idiot boy_ , he snarls.   _This is the moment when I died.  When I chose to live in the past, to steep myself in my failures._ He stares at Harry.   _When I was trying to make amends.  This,_ he spits,  _is you doing the same.  Killing yourself.  How long has it been now?  Two years?_ It hasn’t.  It’s been four and a half.  Harry knows Snape knows this.  He isn’t sure if it’s a test.   _Keep doing it if you desire,_  Snape says, bitterly.   _Merlin knows, I did.  You don’t owe me, Potter_.   _This is a Purgatory of your own making_.  Harry doesn’t know how to answer, so he doesn’t. He goes back down stairs, and he lies back on the floor.  

Six hours later, he wakes, his joints stiff and his bladder aching.   _Purgatory_ , he thinks.  Snape’s right – he’s trying to atone, to make amends, and what does he have to show for it?  A failed career and a potion addiction and another evening spent slumped on the dirty floor in this filthy house with this disgusting man.  He runs his hands through his hair, and groans. With Snape now dead, he can leave in peace.  Move on. Turn a corner.  Put all of this behind him.  First things first though.  He’ll need to call someone – some authority – to collect the body before it starts to smell. He sniffs.   _It already does_.  How long has he been here?

 _Get up, Potter_ , snarls Snape.  And Harry turns, fumbling for his glasses.  The chair is back in its usual spot, and Snape is staring at him with barely concealed loathing.   _Weak_ , he spits.   _Merlin knows how you’d have been if you’d put in the full dosage of venom – I thought you were going to lie there all week._ It’s not an unfair accusation.  Sometimes he does; lies there for hours on end, the guilt pressing into his chest. It’s not usually the potion that causes it – it’s the overwhelming emotions that he can’t cope with.  That’s what keeps him coming back.  That’s what keeps him sprawled unconscious on the floor.

Which is how they find him, eventually.  There’s flies by then, and it’s the neighbours who call.  There’s a swarm of them – the blue uniformed officers, with luminous trim, and toughened caps – and then there’s the real authorities; the aurors, the minister.  Kingsley Shacklebolt.  

 _How long’s he been dead, Harry?_ And the truth is, Harry doesn’t know.  It doesn’t matter anymore.  

 _I thought you were looking after him, Harry?_ He was.  But it wasn’t enough.  

 _You don’t owe me_ , the silky voice whispers in his ear, as he watches the body bag being heaved down the stairs.   _This is a Purgatory of your own making_.  

Harry had survived, and his reward was cheering in the streets, and medals at the Ministry, but it’s hard to believe you’re a hero when there’s a lingering darkness eating at your soul.  

_This wasn’t fair._

Snape had survived, and his reward was not cheering in the streets, or medals at the Ministry, but mutilation by the very teenager he was trying to save.  

_It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along, Potter.  Life.  Isn’t.  Fair._


End file.
